Editorial: Pledge aside, we need to figure out what we stand for

By The Editorial Board

Thursday

Mar 14, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The incident that ensnared Lakeland in the Trump-fueled national debate about race and patriotism is over, at least locally.

Officials closed the case of Jabari Talbot — the black sixth-grader arrested last month after an in-class meltdown that was ignited by a teacher's criticism of his refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance — without entering him into a criminal database, or having to resolve any other issues, The Ledger's Kimberly Moore recently reported.

It's debatable whether authorities really wanted to handle this political hot potato. Assistant State Attorney Jake Orr told The Ledger no charges were ever filed, and that police never presented the case to prosecutors.

However it came about, we applaud whoever made this decision. Prosecuting Jabari as a common criminal would do him no good, nor the school or the community.

Still, there are no winners here.

The incident involving the former Lawton Chiles Middle Academy student blew up when a substitute teacher admonished him for not standing for the Pledge.

Jabari replied that the Pledge and the national anthem are "racist." He apparently had not been standing for the Pledge all school year.

Under Florida law, students must stand, but can be excused from rising if their parents opt out by signing a written declaration to that effect. Citing state and federal laws protecting student privacy, a school district spokesman told us he couldn't confirm whether Jabari's mother had followed that provision, or whether the family of a Hispanic student who reportedly remained seated but wasn't criticized by the teacher did likewise.

Police files show that the teacher, Ana Alvarez, herself a Cuban immigrant, acknowledged telling Jabari he should "go to another place to live" if he thinks "it was so bad here."

Jabari, who according to Alvarez had mocked her accent and was "being disrespectful," interpreted Alvarez's statement as her telling him to "go back to Africa." He then started yelling and disrupting the class. Eventually the school's dean and LPD Officer Carlos Cortes, the school's resource officer, entered the classroom. The situation deteriorated further.

As they ushered Jabari out of the classroom, he began screaming that all of those around him were racists, and vowed "to beat that teacher," records indicate. He also was defiant to Cortes and other faculty, including the principal. Cortes reported that he then arrested Jabari on a charge of resisting arrest without violence because of his behavior and the threat regarding Alvarez.

In hindsight, it would have been helpful if Alvarez had understood the law, or been advised of Jabari's routine during the Pledge, or chosen her words more carefully in explaining why, as an immigrant, she appreciates living in America.

It would have been helpful if Cortes or another faculty member had discovered a different way to defuse the situation without resorting to an arrest.

But that didn't happen — and, as we said, no one wins.

A teacher has been banned from the school system and branded a racist for apparently believing that patriotism was mandatory. A police officer only doing his job is also labeled a racist. The reputation of one of Polk County's top schools is tarnished as a haven for racists, even though it's ratio of white students to minorities is almost equal. And taxpayers likely will dole out a settlement for a major overreaction by all involved.

Meanwhile, Jabari, who hopefully is in a situation more to his liking at a different school, seems to have inculcated an unfortunate lesson peddled by practitioners of identity politics: that the system is rigged against him and those like him, and that individuals or their actions do not matter. His lawyer, for example, wrote in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education, which is still pending, that public education was historically designed to retain black children in "as near a stage of 'slavery' as is possible" — never mind how much public schools have improved the lives of black children whose ancestors in generations past would never have seen the inside of a schoolhouse.

Also because of this incident, Jabari will not understand that the flag he believes is a racist symbol signaling impediment to progress for black Americans actually represents a country that has tried more than any other to atone for its "original sin" of slavery — doing so by fighting a horrific war to free those brought here as slaves, by abolishing the legal and physical relics of its racist past, by championing equality among all races through laws and cultural conversion and by providing a beacon of hope and a better life for people of color around the world.

Jabari's case provided one clear lesson: no, you don't have to stand for the Pledge, but until we figure out how to stand for things that offer common ground to stand on, we all face losing something really valuable.

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